This morning I took a public bus (or 2) to the BUNK’ART museum in the suburbs of Tirana. Already on my way here from Macedonia I had noticed that the country is full of bunkers; Bunkart ist an especially big one that has been turned into a museum recapitulating Albanian history since 1939.
The Bunker was built in 1978 by the communist leader Enver Hoxha, who was a little paranoid with foreign attacks and made it an important part of his agenda to build bunkers everywhere, train citizens on what to do in case of a gas attack and provide a gas mask for every citizen of Albania. A total of 173,371 bunkers were built, which was one for every 11 citizens! The BUNK’ART bunker has 5 underground floors with 106 rooms on 3000m2 and was meant to protect Hoxha and his government in case of a nuclear attack. It has never seen as much as a bullet and was transformed into an art and history museum in 2014.
Walking through the different floors and rooms of the bunker I could admire plenty of communist artifacts such as phones, uniforms, masks, writing machines, televisions and other communication devices and learned a lot about the history of Albania. As a generally pretty uninformed person, I was very fascinated with this part of Europe and European history I knew close to nothing before.
After belonging to big empires for long periods in the further away past (Illyrians, Romans, Byzantine, Ottomans..), Albania has been an independent country since 1912 but has been in war, separated or occupied most of the time since then. The communist regime arose after WW2 in 1945 and lasted until 1991. In this period of time, the regime increasingly isolated the country from the outer world, cutting off even relationships with other communistic regimes one by one which is why the Albanians didn’t know anything about the outside world and the outside world didn’t know anything about Albania until only 27 years ago.
I completely lost track of time, walking deeper and deeper into this “sub-Tiranian” (ha ha) tunnel system. It got colder with every level but it wasn’t a cramping and oppressive experience like I had had it in other tunnel systems or bunkers. The hallways were high, the rooms big and relatively comfortable (at least the ones for the high leadership) and it was pretty clear that this place had been built for VIPs and to spend a long period of time inside.
When I got out, the second Albanian thunderstorm in two days broke down and this time I didn’t have shelter and got very wet which is why I returned to the hostel for new clothes.
In the afternoon I decided to join the Tirana Free walking tour which turned out to be of the best walking tour I’ve ever attended. It was the cherry on my Tirana-cake, topping off and connecting everything I had learned in the museum during the morning. Our guide gave us a more personal and local perspective on the so much hated communistic regime and how Tirana has changed since it broke down. It is hard to believe that there is a country only about 200 km from Italy whose citizens had no idea about credit cards, cars, drivers licences, bananas, chocolate or Coca Cola until the very year I was born. Our guide told us that his grandfather still confused all these new objects and would always just ask for bananas, referring to any of the new foods and drinks. He walked us to some statues of Stalin and Lenin that had been hidden until just recently and were awkwardly placed one next to the other behind the national museum in some obscure backyard.
He also showed us a corner of a park where another two bunkers, some mine supports of a work camp and a fragment of the Berlin wall remind of three pillars of the communistic regime (protection, threat and punishment, and isolation). We saw the newly constructed enormous mosque (financed by Erdogan) and the new catholic and orthodox churches. After years of absolute prohibition of any kind of religion and the destruction of most churches and mosques, people are finding their way back to different religions. About 60% of Albanians claim to be Muslims, but actually less than 10% of them have ever been to a mosque or prayed. I also learned that so many buildings in the center of Tirana are painted in such a weird and colorful way because the actual prime minister, before being a prime minister, was originally a painter and simply likes the colors.
The famous Tirana pyramid on the other side of the (beautiful – see photo) river was another stop on our tour. It was originally a monument in honor of the communist dictator, then no one wanted it anymore and it went from conference center to museum to broadcasting center to night club until the government decided to destroy it. Then that government was not reelected and the half-destroyed building is now awkwardly standing around the center. The new government, however, has decided to reconstruct it, equip it with stairs (people have been climbing it for years anyway) and convert the inside into an education center for children.
Speaking of old and new governments, the palace of the prime minister still showed the signs of yesterday’s protest and was currently cleaned. Apparently, the current opposition has been on a strike and demanding reelections for one month now because they’re angry about having lost the last elections.
I also found out why there are so many buildings on sale: A while ago, gambling and betting became such a big problem that the government decided to forbid any kind of Casino or betting place in Albania, so now all the former Casinos are empty and searching for new purposes.
One of our last stops is the former house of the communist leader Hoxha. Albania seems still not ready to do anything with it, so it is regularly cleaned and maintained in its original state but not used in any way. Ironically, in the windows of that very house, you can now see the reflection of the broad smile of the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy from exactly the opposite side of the road. KFC is the first international food investor in Albania (still no McDonalds, Starbucks, Burgerking etc. in the country) and now smiling as a symbol of capitalism at the communist ex-dictator’s house day and night – a coincidence?
The Albanian language, although it has obviously had Turkish and Latin influences, is one of the oldest in the world and very different from any other language. It sounds a little bit like a Slavic language but with an English R.
After the walking tour I returned to the hostel (still feeling very safe around here, even in the dark), where I was still the only guest ( I am literally the only person in this 4-floor building, I pick the music in the lobby and switch off the lights when I go to bed). I found it without a map and you all know by now what that means: tomorrow I will leave.
As today was day 15, I have now surpassed the length of a standard-14-day vacation. It feels like I’ve been out here for an eternity and I am switching between being highly energized and chronically tired. I am getting ridiculously good at orientation (yes, I know this is very difficult to believe for anyone who knows me a little) and have the general impression that my brain is getting better every day. Not only locations of things outside but also the location of plates, cutlery, oil and salt in continuously changing kitchens, history facts and currency exchange rates are sticking in my mind much quicker than they had done that before. Packing my backpack in the logistically perfect manner has become the most natural activity, and so has gathering the stuff I need to go take a shower, to cook breakfast or dinner or to go out to explore. Planning is getting more short-term every day, I am not even bothering to think about which bus to take tomorrow morning or where to sleep at my next stop, and much less what to do more than one day from now. Of course it is due to the region and the time of the year that I have this freedom and it will be very different in July or August unfortunately.
Since the beginning, I have treated this journey in a this-is-my-life-now way instead of a vacation, seeing it as a long-term state of existence, which is why it already feels very different from a 3-week-journey even if I have been traveling for less time. Every-day-activities like meals, sleeping, writing, relaxing and working have an important place in my days and I know that ignoring them and acting as if I was traveling for only 2 or 3 weeks would burn me (and my body) out very quickly.
I still haven’t been in any situation that would have really forced me outside my comfort-zone, I am very relaxed all the time, I am not feeling more alone or lonely than at home in the last 6 months and everything actually feels like I just moved to another place where I am now continuing life in a normal way – just that this place is more of a nomad state than an actual physical place with work and home.
Tomorrow I will continue my journey further north towards my seventh stop.
